Quotes from John Dryden

Hold, are you mad? you damn'd confounded Dog, I am to rise, and speak the Epilogue.

Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade.

Thus, in a Pageant Show, a Plot is made; And Peace it self is War in Masquerade.

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.

What passion cannot music raise or quell

A sigh or tear perhaps she'll give, But love on pity cannot live: Tell her that hearts for hearts were made, And love with love is only paid, Tell her my pains so fast increase That soon it will be past redress; For the wretch that speechless lies, Attends but death to close his eyes.

In this the seat our Conqueror has given? And this the climate we must change for heaven? These Regions and this realm my wars have got The mournful Empire is the loser's lot.

But dying is a pleasure / When living is a pain.

When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.

so meer Poets and meer Musicians, are as sottish as meer Drunkards are, who live in a continuall mist without seeing, or judgeing any thing clearly. A man should be learn'd in severall Sciences, and should have a rea?sonable Philosophicall, and ni some measure a Mathematicall head; to be a compleat and excellent Poet

Man, like the vine, supported lives; His strength comes from the embrace he gives.

There is a pleasure sure in being mad which none but madmen know -John Dryden

Yet if a Poem have a Genius, it will force its own reception in the World.

Was there no milder way but the Small Pox, The very filth'ness of Pandora's Box?

Seek not thyself without thyself to find.

Two if's scarce make one possibility.

For Life is the means, but Love's the end. [IV.4.73]

Tremble ye Nations who secure before,   115 Laught at those Arms that' gainst our selves we bore;

So easie still it proves in Factious Times, With publick Zeal to cancel private Crimes: How safe is Treason, and how sacred ill, Where none can sin against the Peoples Will: Where Crouds can wink; and no offence be known, Since in anothers guilt they find their own.

But wilde Ambition loves to slide, not stand; And Fortunes Ice prefers to Vertues Land

What cannot Praise effect in Mighty Minds, When Flattery Sooths, and when Ambition Blinds!

Music is the exultation of Poetry. Both of them may excel apart but... are most excellent when they are joined.

Not Heaven itself upon the past has power, But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

NOW  with a general Peace the World was blest, While Ours, a World divided from the rest